Diagnosis: Danger by Marie Ferrarella

Author:Marie Ferrarella
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Romance
Publisher: Harlequin Mills & Boon

Chapter 9

“And who was that?”

Natalya nearly jumped out of her skin. She hadn’t realized that her mother was anywhere in the vicinity when Mike dropped her off at the bridal shop entrance. Looking back, she should have known better. Her mother always managed to materialize out of thin air. When they were little girls, she and Sasha had been convinced that Magda Pulaski had magical powers.

Turning around, she realized too late that she was still smiling as she looked at the petite woman standing with the door half-ajar. “That was the police detective investigating Clancy’s murder.”

Magda Pulaski came forward and squinted as she focused intently on the figure that was becoming little more than a dark silhouette as he disappeared down the street.

“Do all investigating police detectives giving rides to the friends of the dead person?” she asked her daughter innocently.

“‘Give,’ Mama, do all investigating police detectives ‘give’ rides to the friends of—” With a sigh, Natalya gave up trying to fix the sentence. “The answer is no, Mama. They don’t.”

A knowing expression feathered across her face. “Ah.”

Natalya held the door open for her mother as she entered the building. “No ‘ah’.”

Magda spread her hands, looking mystified at the rejoinder. “What no ‘ah?’ ‘Ah’ is ‘ah,’” she said simply. “Nothing more.”

If only that were true, Natalya thought. “That’s right, Mama, nothing more,” she emphasized.

Magda’s expression was just this side of smug. “He is not looking like nothing more. He is looking like ‘something’ more. His eyes—”

Okay, now she had her. Her mother was making this up as she went along. “You couldn’t possibly see his eyes from where you were standing, Mama.”

Magda took offense. “I could seeing everything from where I was standing. My eyes, they are seeing like when I was a young girl.”

Natalya sighed. She scanned the small, crowded store for her sisters, hoping one of them would come to her rescue. They had to be in the back, she decided. It figured. “Go, turn those sharp eyes on Papa, Mama,” Natalya half pleaded.

Magda gave a delicate but dismissive snort. “Your father, he is home, hiding. All things female make him nervous.”

She had a feeling that it was her mother that made her father nervous. Her mother was unpredictable. At a time in life where most people settled into a pattern, her mother was like a firecracker, set to go off. “Then he certainly got into the wrong family, didn’t he, Mama?”

“Yes, poor man.” Magda chuckled. Slipping her arm around her daughter’s waist, she beamed at her second born. She was enjoying herself immensely. One of her girls was getting married. Only four more to go. “Come, your sisters, they are in the back. Should we telling them about your investigating detective?”

Natalya prayed for patience and wished she’d taken the subway instead of letting Mike bring her. “There’s nothing to tell.”

An expression most recently seen on a cat after swallowing a mouse visited her mother’s face. “Of course there is not.”

Her mother was the only woman she knew who let you know she was disagreeing with you while she was agreeing.

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